The continued build-out of Steelpointe Harbor takes center stage Monday at 7 p.m. for the City Council’s first meeting of 2022 when the legislative body is expected to approve a tax abatement that calls for 400 market-rate units of housing, hotel and associated retail plan at Stratford Avenue and East Main Street along the waterfront at the intersection of the East Side and East End close to Downtown.
A joint committee of the City Council, by a 9-1 vote, has approved the tax plan.
Under the terms of the agreement, the developer will pay taxes on the cost of the land for three years annually, $23,900, during the construction and occupancy phase. Tax payments will increase to $1.26 million in 2025, rising by two percent each year, reaching $1.47 million in the final year of the abatement. Full standard taxation will then commence.
The apartments will range in price from $2,100 to $2,700 per month which supporters of the project assert creates a higher-end housing market bringing new investment into the city.
Some opponents argue the tax plan should include a 20 percent set-aside for affordable housing.
Based on the vote by a Joint Committee on Economic and Community Development and Environment and Contracts, the plan is expected to pass the full 20-member body.
See full agenda here.
This meeting will be conducted by Teleconference.
The public may listen by calling the following conference line and then entering the conference code:
Dial-In Number: (929) 436-2866
Meeting ID: 381 083 245
Ernie Newton,………. RESIGN !!!
Jim fox, I can almost guarantee you Ernie won’t be the only council member to approve this project, so if I’m correct shouldn’t at least 18 other resign as well? Why are the white council members not held to same standard of contempt as Ernie when all of them fight for their time up the Mayor’s ass?
DD, This is why the developer wants to push through 400 market-rate units of housing,
and the need to have shill’s like Moses to move his plan ASAP..
Public Act 17-170 established a requirement that Connecticut municipalities adopt Affordable Housing Plans. PA 21-29 established an initial deadline of June 1, 2022 for municipalities to have adopted their first Affordable Housing Plans (an every five years thereafter). It also explicitly allows Affordable Housing Plans to be updated concurrently with Plans of Conservation and Development.
PA 21-29 established an initial deadline of June 1, 2022 for municipalities to have adopted their first Affordable Housing Plans (and every five years thereafter) as required by CGS Section 8-30j. It also explicitly allowed Affordable Housing Plans to be updated concurrently with the Plan of Conservation & Development (for one of the two five-year periods within the 10-year POCD cycle).
In 2020, the Connecticut Department of Housing announced the availability of grant funding on a first-come, first-served basis to support municipalities preparing Affordable Housing Plans. A second round of funding was announced in 2021 with an application deadline of August 31. Visit DOH’s site for full information.
In partnership with the CT Department of Housing, Regional Plan Association prepare a guidebook for municipalities preparing Affordable Housing Plans.
Sonny, tell us about all that affordable housing in bucolic Greenfield Hill and Southport along the water in Fairfield. When you sat on that so-called commission in Fairfield it did nothing. The suburban way to justify affordable housing is approval of in-law accessory apartments. Tell us about the affordable housing in the heart of your neighborhood Black Rock? Can you imagine some developer coming along to propose affordable housing in the heart of your neighborhood? All you preachers of affordable housing will come clutching hatchets. The developer of Steelpointe Harbor has built affordable housing in the city with more on the horizon. Bridgeport has been a godsend of affordable housing for young professionals from lower Fairfield County who cannot afford the prices in Stamford et al. It’s been good for Downtown as life has returned to the central business district. You love high end housing in Black Rock, but now you want to force an affordable housing component on a developer who has invested millions in the city. Do you need a reminder what the neighborhood was like before they came on the scene 20 years ago? Do you want the leadership of the NRZ that supports the project to resign as well? Did you listen to the presentation made to the joint council committee? Good grief, someone can land a spot there between $2,100-$2,700. That’s hardly luxurious as has been described by opponents. Check out the pricing in Stamford.
Lennie, you’ll have a book in he making when this deal is finish, Lennie, you know how developers like to wine and dine those who will vote on their project. You have pointed to a bigger problem, “Social Engineering,” the use of centralized planning in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behavior of a society. Without affordable housing in Bridgeport and Fairfield County where do the displace blacks in the city relocate? Their entire neighborhood is taken from them for the greater need to provde rich whites with the waterfrot property with black and brown elected members saying nothing and doing nothing for their own people. Follow the money, something that the FBI knows about. Happy New Year.
”Another Shill working for the developer!”
Pick any single high end house in Black Rock and they are paying more in property tax per year then the entire Steal Pointe peninsula !
400 hundred units of MARKET RATE housing and you and Moses can’t find one unit affordable, pure greed, the entire project should be 10% affordable that’s only 40 units!
Redding, Connecticut Fair Market Rent
Studio One BR Two BR Three BR Four BR
$1,203 $1,412 $1,810 $2,291 $2,487
Redding, Connecticut Payment Standard Range $1,083 to $1,323 $1,271 to $1,553 $1,629 to $1,991 $2,062 to $2,520 $2,238 to $2,736
Please! ASAP It has been over decades in the making. What about the shrills who represent your district who are moving this project forward? Call for their resignation too?
I can’t say much about this tax abatement, on its value, overall for the city, but the city lost tens of millions of tax revenue over the course of this endeavor from all the property taken off the city’s tax roll. Along with tens of millions more spent on taking those properties and clearing them in the city to just hand it over to a developer, (I believe) So I highly doubt the city/taxpayers will ever be made whole.
But to Marcus’ point landlords what to make as much as they can so I don’t see this anything but. So his point against it might be one-sided.
That being said, It better has a worthy goal to elevate the city whit the potential to raise the tide that will rise boats in the quality of life.
Let’s not forget, the Port once did ambitions affordable housing throughout the Port in almost every section of the city. So that plan better be wise for it residents, and let not forget those racial elements that existed back then don’t exist today as they had, Or at least as it was, the Port racial demographic in the schools is practically black and brown (Latino)
https://www.facebook.com/DoingItLocal/posts/10158827633282169
For that greed/capitalism be it on the backs or the tenant or taxpayer will have a negative effect overall on the quality of life for many in chasing that mighty dollar. Peace out people Good luck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5d1K0JcgIs
I didn’t hear anybody ask why the increase in tax payments after they pay the $1.26 million in 2025 is only two percent. From what I’ve seen in these situations, the increase is usually three percent. Why couldn’t the city council ask for a 4% increase. That would be an extra $100,000 in the city’s coffers over the life of the deal. These developers are getting a great deal, I think they could afford it. Somebody on the city council needs to start thinking for themselves. The people of Bridgeport deserve better than this.
Jim fox, correct me if I’m wrong, but the 139th doesn’t extend across the Stratford Ave Bridge so this isn’t Ernie’s district anyway. Lennie, this isn’t Southport, Fairfield or Black Rock. They took the homes, hopes and dreams of Black’s and Puerto Rican’s and now those same people that they took from can’t afford to live there! The hell with market value because they asked the community to make a sacrifice by giving up their homes yet these predatory developers, the Mayor and the council members don’t feel that they should make the same sacrifice. Bullshit Lennie, Bullshit Ernie and Bullshit to the nine joint committee members of the City Council that approved the tax plan. Bullshit!
P.S While Marcusa 🙂 pointed out Maria was not present and would vote to no does this mean she’s no longer a pleasant meal atop of a trash lid. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1i9AQvZLZA
Those people who lived in the 137nd and the 139th should be screaming from the rooftops,
The 139th was lock off from this peninsula and still is!
I remember when Ernie Newton had a set of Balls and would speak up for his people!
(What is this called, the return of the white flight!)
City Council members this should be affordable for everyone, we already paid the price for steal Pointe but they want more, wait till June 1st for a Bridgeport affordable Housing Plan.!
Please, they were screaming, but not because of a bridge, but because bodies were everywhere. people were blocked from their own street/home with the Jersey barriers. And when that tide was low so too was Blackrock, my friend. Which lead to the great white flight and the black and Latinos who couldn’t take flight for greener pasture along the valley, were, well, some would say prisoners in their own homes.
The only thing that needs to take flight is those stupid birds on Pleasure Beach before the Pelicans roll up. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6UFQ9N-qp0&t=1s
Comrade, you and Jim are the flip sides of the same race card. I highly double blacks or PR will be red lined from renting or buying there, or in Southport, Fairfield or Black Rock. So is it really more about race or value?
No much of a sacrifice if they blacks and PR had to move and the development was lowered then it was, No? If any black or PR had to lost there home, which they owned, I am sure they were paid for it and was able to
rebuild their hopes and dreams somewhere else in the Port or beyond, like Ansonia, No?
Saying a black today or PR can’t afford to rent an appartment their is like say they can’t own a Bens, which I believer you have two and a home filled with your hopes and dreams, as a black man. No? JS
But I get the point, There should be a means for someone of lower financial means to enjoy a better living condition there, and I am sure the new developments on the old Panic created some hope and dreams to black and latino who enjoy the new living conditions, as well as other newly affordable housing elsewhere in the Port. JS
To Lennie’s point, it hardly high-end luxury for those blue collar trash, but it is the law people, good luck. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBAI9dR7gp8
Well; if history is any guide to future expectations, what we’ll probably see when all is said and done is an indefinitely stalled project, no taxes, and a change of plans that calls for the creation of affordable units suitable for rental by the regional, commuting labor force… In other words, units to house the affordable labor that is required to maintain the tax base and lifestyle of the Gold Coast and affluent suburbs surrounding Bridgeport. And the state and federal government will wind up subsidizing that — probably leasing the land from the developers and NOT paying Bridgeport taxes in lieu of DEFERRED PILOT payments… Why would affluent renters — that could spend and stimulate serious economic activity in Bridgeport — move to Steelpointe/Bridgeport? The rest of the city will still be “Bridgeport.” I don’t think that many “urban pioneers” would have Bridgeport in their sights, with or without Bass Pro, Chipotle, and the Boat House set against a backdrop of the rest of Bridgeport and our waterfront power and waste-disposal infrastructure. After 40 years, let’s get REAL about Stealpoint…
To reiterate —
And just what are the goals/outcomes of this huge, taxpayer investment? It would seem that the main goal/outcome of this project has more to do with political vanity (“…Look at what my Administration did in Bridgeport!…”) than with reassembling the economic nuts and bolts of this impoverished, crime-ridden town into something that could be described as viable and productive. But that is just in keeping with the modern non-plan plan of Bridgeport redevelopment… (Not to digress, but in deference to RM and DD, et al., we might interpret Bridgeport’s present redevelopment “strategy” as presenting a strong indication of a general “gentrification” theme, such that we will slowly shed our historical identity and population demographics… Contextually, it might be said of this implicit design, albeit somewhat abstractly, that “…Pride goes before the fall…” Do we really want to continue trying to be something other than “Bridgeport”?!
Really; the Steelpointe project has been a boondoggle from Day 1. The original concept was inappropriate with respect to the needs and attributes of this city, and the “evolved” version makes even less sense. It is a development mismatch that has never even had the intent of taxpayer benefits written into its RFP responses. The developer(s) must have bought into a political ploy that even designers don’t fully understand…
Eventually, those seeking to become involved in commercial development in this city will realize that our demographics, assets, and ongoing/historical reality demand that appropriate job development is the first step in revitalizing this city. First the jobs. Then the image change. THEN the entertainment/vanity projects.
Workforce housing, in the context of accommodating regional needs, will only keep this city behind the 8-ball. Seaport/waterfront development, in the form of yachting destinations and regional power and waste-handling facilities (incompatible in any event!!) are not conducive to revitalizing this impoverished rust-bucket city. Yachters and high rollers aren’t coming to a place where they’re surrounded by obnoxious infrastructure and where they put themselves at risk for personal/property harm…
Bridgeport is a by heritage and resource description, a working-class, manufacturing-center port city that should be making tangible things of value and shipping them out to the rest of the world. Such a description of Bridgeport’s role in the world has always defined our prosperity — when we could claim the existence of such. When we had full employment at good, local jobs — with a real, commercial tax base — we had the atmosphere and wherewithal of a local populace to support a rich, renowned assortment of regional entertainment venues.
Now, as a generally troubled, socioeconomically/politically distressed place that serves as the regional catch-basin for obnoxious, property-devaluing infrastructure and services, we are in no position to support contraindicated, heavily subsidized, unproductive vanity development and regional-workforce housing.
We only have to take stock of the condition of our downtown and other, former commercial corridors to realize that Bridgeport is presently map-less and politically rudderless — and serving as regional prey for development that is contraindicated for our municipal well-being.
Energy-themed manufacturing jobs, port-facility/rail shipping development — with a heliport/air-drone port at Sikorsky Airport — are what (among other things) could produce a real future for Bridgeport… With these in place, people with yachts might want to dock here…
To have these things realized here, we need entirely new political leadership, as well as new agendas in Hartford and DC.
IN with the NEW; OUT with the OLD!
Happy New Year! (Happy Bicentennial Bridgeport!…)
Jeff, one question, how many of the Bridgeport City Council members understand the dialogue and history on this topic, I say zero.
The irony is that one member of the city council pays more in property Tax then the entire Steal Pointe project and that council member is voting for this Tax Break!
Sonny, have you switched your meds again?
No there’s a shortage!